#minimalismtips

[thedailyminimalist-blog1]

3 Things to Get Rid Of!

Towels

2 towels and washcloths per person in your family

2 guest towels

1 “grunge” towel/dirty towel per person

1-2 beach towels per person

1-2 hand towels per bathroom

Tip: Remember to replace towels every 5 years or so.

Shoes

Keep only the shoes you wear and love.

Sheets and Comforters

One extra comforter is plenty!

Keep 2 sheet sets per bed.

[joshuafieldsmillburn]

#MinimalismTips Day 28: Unfilled space is fulfilling. Sometimes a nook is just a nook, a cranny just a cranny—we needn't succumb to the pressure to fill them with decorative trinkets. Sure, if that painting or photo or potted plant speaks to you—if it truly brings you joy—then, by all means, display it proudly. But you don't have to pepper your hallways with artwork "just because" everyone else is doing it. Same goes for closets, cupboards, basements, attics, and spare bedrooms: just because there's extra space that doesn't mean it needs to be occupied by stuff. No, we shouldn't deprive ourselves of objects we enjoy, but we mustn't feel obligated to decorate for the sake of "sprucing up the decor," either. There is an aesthetic elegance in minimalism, because erasing that which is superfluous allows us to see the beauty in the essential. Ultimately, though, real value comes only from inside us—not the room, not the stuff. Of course this is much easier to notice if there’s less junk cluttering our lives.

[joshuafieldsmillburn]

#MinimalismTips Day 26: A life with less is an inherently tidy life. By stripping down to the essentials, our days are simpler to manage. Be it our homes, our vehicles, or our relationships, when we let go of that which does not improve our lives, we are left with a life that's more manageable, and thus more enjoyable. Oh, and it sure is nice to come home to a perpetually clutterfree environment. Here's a tip: look around your home, your office, your car, and identify anything that does not make your life better. How would letting go improve your life overall?

[joshuafieldsmillburn]

#MinimalismTips Day 24: Embrace the junk drawer. We all need a place to store our miscellanea, but that doesn't mean it has to be chaotic, overflowing, overwhelming. Here's an idea: what if you had only one junk drawer, and you filled it with whatever you want, but you cleared it out every 90 days, freeing it of unused junk? Would you find more value—and less stress—in the drawer's existence? Perhaps we shouldn't call it a "junk drawer," then. How about a "curated drawer"? With the excess out of the way, that sounds more apropos, doesn't it? How about you: could your junk drawer use a little curation?

[joshuafieldsmillburn]

#MinimalismTips Day 23: Gift experiences, not stuff. The holiday (shopping) season is right around the corner, so here’s an idea: what if you decide to gift only experiences this year? How much more memorable will your holidays be? Experiences worth considering: concert tickets, a home-cooked meal, tickets to a play or musical, breakfast in bed, a back rub, a foot rub, a full-body massage, a holiday parade, walking or driving somewhere without a plan, spending an evening talking with no distractions, making-out under the mistletoe, visiting a festival of lights, cutting down a Christmas tree, watching a sunrise, skiing, snowboarding, sledding, dancing, taking your children to a petting zoo, making snow angels, making a batch of hot apple cider, taking a vacation together, watching a wintertime sunset. What other experiences can you give to someone you care about? Your experiences build and strengthen the bond between you and the people you care about. Don’t you think you’d find more value in these experiences than material gifts? Don’t you think your loved ones will find more value, too? There’s only one way to find out. P.S. Today is @RyanNicodemus’s 34th birthday, and he’d like one gift from you: help him build a family-style orphanage in Honduras. Would you be willing to chip in a few bucks to help a group of needy orphans? If so, read Ryan’s birthday essay: minimalists.com/hope

[joshuafieldsmillburn]

#MinimalismTips Day 22: Avoid Sale Price (Fool's Price). I had to purchase a new pair of bluejeans recently—and I paid Full Price. My previous pair, tattered after two years of literal wear and tear, were beyond repair. You see, I avoid Sale Price whenever I can, and opt instead to pay Full Price: even though I don’t spend a lot of money overall, I tend to purchase higher quality items—not for their brand names, but because I’m willing to pay more for things that look good, work well, and last long. Because I’m responsible with money, the higher priced, higher quality items actually cost less over time. The reason I avoid Sale Price, though, has less to do with quality or money, and more to do with my impulses. I prefer to pay Full Price because it forces me to question the purchase: when I discover something I want to buy, I must think it over and spend time budgeting for it—all the while questioning if the new possession will add real value to my life. Conversely, Sale Price is the compulsory price—a Fool’s Price. Not long ago, I played the fool. Repeatedly. I fell for all the tropes of Sale Price: Act now! Limited time only! While supplies last! Like Pavlov’s bell, these clever stratagems incite a false sense of scarcity that clouds our perception of reality, and thus prod us to act on impulse: sure, you might save 70% off the clearance-rack dress you sort of like, but you’ll save 100% if you just leave the store without it. —@joshuafieldsmillburn

[joshuafieldsmillburn]

#MinimalismTips Day 21: A clean desk is the foundation of a calm workspace. We often lie to our selves, pretending we need endless office accoutrements to be “productive.” So we clutter our desks with binders, staplers, Post-it notes, paperclips, thumbtacks, pens, pencils, highlighters, markers, calendars, and dozens of unused office supplies, not to mention the endless stacks of paper we accumulate, all of which leads to a cluttered—and anxiety-producing—workspace. But what if we jettisoned everything unessential? As a experiment, why not give this a shot: get rid of everything today (box it up or simply get it out of the way), and then slowly reintroduce items to your workspace as needed over the next few days. Then get rid of anything you didn’t reintroduce—anything you don’t use this week. It’s like having a miniature #PackingParty for your workspace. With less stuff, it’s so much easier to stay calm, organized, focused. Are you willing to experiment?

[joshuafieldsmillburn]

#MinimalismTips Day 20: We don't need to own a thing to enjoy it. Most of us never owned private basketball courts, bowling alleys, or swimming pools as children. And yet we had access to these activities by way of our local communities (YMCA, public schools, parks). And now in today’s culture, access trumps ownership more than ever. With the rapid expansion of our sharing economy (Uber, Airbnb, Freecycle) we’re living in a world that’s completely different from our Industrial Age predecessors’. Today, we needn’t own a single DVD or CD or print book to have access to essentially unlimited options: with the click of a button, we can view any movie ever made, listen to any song ever produced, or read any page that’s ever been printed. And it doesn't stop at the walls of our digital world, either: your personal art collection is massive (at your nearby museum); your individual book selection is never-ending (at your local library); your evergreen backyard is expansive (at the neighborhood park). That’s not to say that there’s anything inherently wrong with the physical artifacts themselves. It’s just that, like the record albums of yesteryear, we are able to own less in the deliberate pursuit of experiencing more. Much like a hipster’s impressive vinyl collection, a well-curated bookshelf holds significantly more meaning than, say, clinging to a random collection of paperbacks just in case we might read them someday in some nonexistent future. The same can be said for DVDs and CDs … and what’s next? (Let’s not even mention all those forgotten VHS and cassette tapes collecting dust in the basement.) These relics (movies, music, books) are just the beginning. Imagine all the possibilities we will unveil as we shift from a culture of ownership—a culture obsessed with personally owning every object we can get our hands on—to a culture of access, in which every citizen has unlimited access to virtually everything virtually. What do you have access to?